Zadie Smith - NW

59. Proper names

It was not that Ms. Blake hadn’t noticed the white people walking around with the climbing equipment, or the white people huddled in stairwells discussing the best method to chain themselves to an oak tree. She had experienced her usual anthropological curiosity with regard to these matters. But she had thought it was more of an aesthetic than a protest. The details of the project were hazy in her mind. “This is Jed,” said Leah, “and this is Katie and Liam and this is Paul. Guys, this is Keisha, she—” “No: Natalie.” “Sorry, this is Natalie, we went to school together,” said Leah. “She goes here, she’s a lawyer. It’s so weird to see you guys!” When Leah proceeded to offer these people a round—“No, you sit, we’ll get”—Natalie Blake panicked, her budget being extremely tightly managed with no space for rounds of drinks for Crusties to whom she had never before spoken in her life. But at the bar, Leah handed over a twenty and Natalie’s only job was to arrange six pints on a round tray best suited for five.

“Lee, how do you even know these people?”

“Newbury!”

60. And the scales fell from her eyes

It was apparently important to “keep the pressure up” if they were going to stop the government building this byroad. Rodney listened but only pointed at the books on his desk, which had the imposing heft of the law, thousands of pages long with brutal, functional covers. Leah tried a different tack: “It’s basically a legal issue — there’s a lot of law kids down there right now. It’s good experience, Rodney, even you would agree, even Judge Rodney of the court of the world.” Natalie Blake found herself smiling. She could at this moment think of no more wonderful thing than sitting up a tree with her good friend Leah Hanwell many hundreds of miles away from this claustrophobic room. Rodney raised his head from his tort casebook. He had a ruthless look on his face. “We don’t care about trees, Leah,” he said. “That’s your luxury. We haven’t got the time to care about trees.”

61. Coup de foudre

“Mr. De Angelis, could you carry on from ‘the power of habit’—top of the second page,” said Professor Kirkwood, and an extraordinary young man stood up in the front row. He was not a law student, but he was here, in a “philosophy of law” lecture. He was made of parts Natalie considered mutually exclusive, and found difficult to understand together. He had a collection of unexpected freckles. His nose was very long and dramatic in a style she did not know enough to call “Roman.” His hair was twisted into dreadlocks that were the opposite of Leah’s, too pristine. They framed his face neatly, ending just below his chin. He wore chinos with no socks, and those shoes that have ropes threaded along the sides, a blue blazer, and a pink shirt. An indescribable accent. Like he was born on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean and raised by Ralph Lauren.

62. Montaigne

In one country, virgins openly display their private parts while married women cover them. In another, male brothels exist. In yet another heavy golden rods are worn through the breasts and buttocks and after dinner men wipe their hands on their testicles. In some places they eat people. In others the fathers decide, when the children are still in the womb, which will be kept and brought up and which killed or abandoned. Kirkwood put his hand up to halt this narrative. “Naturally,” he said, “all these people find their own habits to be unremarkable.” A few students laughed. Natalie Blake and Rodney Banks tried to find the essay between the covers of the cheap edition they shared (they tended to buy one copy of a text book, and then, when it was finished, immediately sell it back to one of the secondhand stores by the university library). The title did not seem to be in the contents or the index, and the fact that they were still not talking to each other made cooperation difficult. “What is the lesson here for a lawyer?” asked Kirkwood. The notable young man’s hand went up. Even from where Natalie Blake was sitting she could see the jewelry on his brown fingers, and an elegant watch with a crocodile-skin strap that looked older than Kirkwood. He said: “Although you may turn up in court armed with reason, we live in an unreasonable world.” Natalie Blake tried to work out if this was an interesting answer. Kirkwood paused, smiled, and said: “You put a lot of faith in reason, Mr. De Angelis. But think of last week’s example. Hundreds of witnesses stand in the dock: good friends, ex-teachers, ex-nurses, ex-lovers. They all say That’s Tichborne. The man’s own mother gets up there and points: That’s my son . Reason tells us the Claimant is ten stone heavier than the man he’s claiming to be. Reason tells us the real Tichborne could speak French. And yet. And when ‘reason prevailed,’ why did people riot in the streets? Don’t put too much faith in reason. Look, I think Montaigne is more skeptical. I think his point is not that you, the lawyers, are reasonable and they, the people, are unreasonable, or even that the laws the people submit to are unreasonable, but that those who submit to traditional laws have at least the defense of ‘simplicity, obedience and example’—Can you see that? End of the third page? — While those who try to change them, that is, the laws, are usually terrible in some way, monstrous. We see ourselves as perfect exceptions.” Natalie Blake was lost. The young man gave a slow, approving nod, the kind a man gives to his equal. His confidence seemed unwarranted, not following from anything he’d said or done. A piece of paper passed round the room. The students were asked to add their full name and from which department they hailed. Even before writing her own Natalie Blake looked for his.

63. Reconnaissance

Francesco De Angelis. 2nd year Economics. Universally known as “Frank.” Running for African and Caribbean Soc president next month. Likely to win. Attended a “second-rate boarding school.” This from someone who attended a “grammar school.” Further: “His mum’s Italian or something. His dad was probably some African prince, that’s usually the case.”

64. Educational parenthesis

(Some schools you “attended.” Brayton you “went” to.)

65. 8th March

It happened that Leah’s third visit coincided with a dinner for International Women’s Day. A useful excuse not to see Rodney. Leah wore a green dress and Natalie wore a purple one, and they got ready together and walked to the dining hall arm in arm. The obvious pleasure they took in each other, their deep familiarity and ease in each other’s company, made them more attractive as a pair than they ever could have been alone, and perfectly conscious of this fact they emphasized their similarities of height and build, and kept their long legs in stride. By the time they reached their table Natalie was quite giddy with the power of being young, almost free of a man who bored her and soon to embark on a meal of more than two courses.

66. Menu

Honeydew melon with tiger prawn salad

Chicken breast wrapped in pancetta with green beans and Juliette potatoes

Warm Chocolate fondant with vanilla bean ice cream

Cheeses

Coffee, mints

67. Desire

“Who that?” asked Leah Hanwell.

“The dean,” said Natalie Blake, and licked some chocolate off her teeth. “If she stopped speechifying we could go to the bar.”

“No, the girl at the end of that table. In the top hat.”

“What?”

“Chinese or Japanese — there.”

“Oh, I don’t know her.”

“She’s so beautiful!”

68. Valentino

Korean. In the bar she put her hat on the table, and as Natalie Blake spoke to someone else in their booth, she, Natalie Blake, frequently reached out for this hat and stroked its satin brim. At her back she could hear her good friend Leah Hanwell talking to the Korean, whose name was Alice, making her laugh, and when Natalie went to the bar to buy drinks she had an unobstructed view of Leah as old-school lothario — one hand over the back of the couch, another on Alice’s knee, breathing on the girl’s lovely neck. Natalie Blake had seen Leah do this many times, but with boys, and there had always seemed something a little shocking and perverse in it, whereas here the relation looked natural. This thought made Natalie wonder at herself and where she was with God these days, or if she was with him at all. Unable to stop staring she made herself walk over to the jukebox and put on the song Electric Relaxation by A Tribe Called Quest in the hope that it would relax her.